In an exciting sequel to my adventures in Spain during undergrad (which can be found at americansevillana.tumblr.com), this blog is dedicated to my adventures in China from 2014-15, where I was teaching English to Chinese college students and going on Chinese adventures. Lots of cool pictures and musings on Chinese vs. American culture! Enjoy!
Picturesque views on a slightly rainy day in Beijing on a stretch of partially-restored wall between Zhuangdaokou and Huanghua Cheng. See part 1 for more details on this stretch of the Wall.
By far my favorite part of our trip to Beijing was hiking the Great Wall. It happened to be the only day with good weather (just a little bit of intermittently misting rain to keep us cool) and, thanks to the Lonely Planet guide book, we found the perfect section of wall to climb. It’s easiest, of course, to go to the touristy, well-restored sections, to which pretty much every hotel and hostel in Beijing sponsors trips, but if you want to avoid the crowds, there are lots of other options. If you’re into hiking and have lots of time on your hands, there are plenty of sections of “wild wall”, but we went for a partially restored section with a short hike.
We started in the village of Zhuangdaokou. The guide book explains very well how to get there by taking 2 buses out of Beijing for about 2 hours. This village is sustained on chestnut crops and sparse Great Wall tourism. It has two ancient trees at the bottom of the trail to the wall, one shaped like a phoenix and the other like a dragon.
A short hike up the valley takes you to a low section of the wall with stairs to get onto it. To the left is a long section of wild wall, but to the right is a short section of partially restored wall that leads to the village of Huanghua Cheng. Hiking between these two locations was ideal for a short (if incredibly steep) hike with picturesque views of the wall snaking off in both directions. It costs nothing to get on the wall in Zhuangdaokou, but it cost us 3 RMB to come down in Huanghua Cheng. We met a family of Chinese tourists who we did the hike with, and besides them, only encountered 2 other pairs of tourists the whole 2-3 hours we were on the wall. I highly recommend this stretch for a Great Wall hike.
Tiananmen Square on a smoggy summer afternoon in Beijing. This square, one of the largest public squares in the world, is located just south of the Forbidden City and is home to the Gate of Heavenly Peace (which is the English translation of Tiananmen) to the north,the Great Hall of the People (the congress building, which is on the 100 RMB note) to the west, the National Museum of China to the east, the Mao Zedong Mausoleum to the south, and a number of statues and war monuments (such as the Monument to the People’s Heroes) near the mausoleum.
The square is always filled with people, especially late in the evenings when people come out to dance, socialize, and sell toys and food.
A touristy Hutong (alleyway) in downtown Beijing. The inner ring of Beijing is full of such hutongs, small narrow streets lined with quaint restaurants and drink shops, touristy and miscellaneous hipster shops, and greenery-decked hostels. An enjoyable place for a stroll and some window-shopping, though later in the evening it can get pretty crowded.
The Forbidden City in Beijing is a huge walled-in complex built for emperors and now inhabited by mobs of tourists, as it’s one of the biggest attractions in China. The entrance price is not too bad, but within the city are smaller areas, such as the treasury, which cost extra to get into. You can walk straight through from the south gate to the north in not too much time, but all of the small gardens, temples, living quarters and halls could make for a long day of tourism. Thank goodness for all of the ice cream vendors to help you beat the Beijing summer heat!
Crowds inside the entrance of the Forbidden City in Beijing. This was on another over-100-degree-and-sunny day. The Chinese use parasols (or those funny rainbow umbrella hats) to beat the heat, but even though we remembered our umbrellas, waiting in line for 45 minutes just to get a ticket was killer. We were surprised at how many people showed up on such a sweltering day, but Chinese tourists are nothing if not dedicated to the whole torturous tourist experience!
The Summer Palace in Beijing, China. This huge garden in the outer rings of Beijing used to be a retreat for emperors and is, accordingly, beautiful and lavish to an extreme. It includes museums, palaces, bridges, temples, an ivory boat, and an endless corridor along the lake.
The day we visited was over 100 degrees fahrenheit, but still packed with tourists. The crowd, scorching sun, and pricey food really sapped our energy, so we did the short version of the tour, just from the east gate to the north gate, with an exhausting detour up the tallest temple. It really was beautiful though, and definitely work the trip.
This Chinese character, 囍, means “double happiness” (since it is composed of the character for joy - 喜 - twice) and is used in many decorations related to weddings in China. The color red is lucky and also used in traditional weddings (such as the traditional red wedding dress). These large decorations, made of paper and glitter, are frequently put up on either side of the gate to the house or restaurant where a wedding is taking place. And then they’re often left there (just like Spring Festival decorations) until they fall off.
A fairly typical dorm room at Henan University, including 4 lofted beds, 4 desks, and very little by way of storage space. This is probably a pretty old dorm building, though, as the front of it sports old Marxist slogans.
The Po Pagoda is the oldest building in Kaifeng and was built during the Song Dynasty. The walls, both inside and out are covered in thousands of carved Buddhist figures, most of which have been restored at various times throughout history, and many of which sport the graffiti of generations. The current pagoda is only 3 stores high, though some records record it as being 9 stories. It is unclear whether it was originally 9 stories and the top stories fell down at some point, or whether it was meant to be 9 stories but the local patronage that was funding the project ran out before it was finished.
4th of July celebration with some of my conversation students. We did some USA trivia and played some games and ate snacks. It was my last chance to see most of them, and it was sad to say goodbye to such good students!
I stuck it out as the only foreigner in the Henan University Calligraphy Club for a whole year, and I made progress! In fact, I was the only one who showed up regularly besides my teacher, Yiran, and my student and translator, Xixi. Most people were impressed with anything I did just because I’m a foreigner who can barely speak Chinese, but at the end of the year I got some sincere complements on my progress and I’m very proud of at least a few of my characters! I still have a lot of work to do, but I have a good foundation to work on now, and I made some good friends in addition.
Still in China on the 4th of July, my friends and I decided to make cheese burgers and light off fireworks to celebrate. The burgers were a challenge using only Chinese ingredients and cooking supplies, but the fireworks were easy. Although not so many places sell fireworks at this time of year (they’re easier to find during the Spring Festival), we managed to find a firework shop a few blocks from campus (all on our own!). There don’t seem to be any rules regulating firework sales and use in China, so we bought a bunch of sparklers and one big set of the kind that shoot up about 10 feet and bang. All you do is light the first one and the rest follow. We did it in a public park just outside of campus and only felt a little bad because we accidentally freaked out some cute dogs. No one even looked at us twice though, since fireworks are common in China for all kinds of occasions, from weddings, births, and funerals to store openings. I don’t know if it really counted as American pride to set off fireworks in the country that invented them, but it was still fun!
Some really beautiful ceramic plates, hand-made by artisans in Kaifeng. Chrysanthemums are the official flower of Kaifeng, and these plates are stunning in their detailed rendering of them. I would definitely have bought one if I had thought it would survive the trip back to the US.
I may have mentioned Chinese bathrooms before, but I finally got a chance to take a photo of one of my favorites with no one else around (which, as you can see, would be a problem for photo-taking). This bathroom is located in one of the main class buildings at Henan University old campus. It’s a ladies bathroom, as you might be able to tell from the feminine products scattered on the floor. That trench in the middle goes under all 4 stalls in the bathroom and gets flushed only after a certain number of minutes (I’m not sure how many). For reference, the walls of the stall are a little below chest height. There are no doors on the stalls, and even the entrance to the bathroom is only covered by a sheet that falls to about waist height.
I know every westerner complains about the squat toilets in China, but I want to add my two cents. Squat toilets take getting used to. They’re difficult to use for westerners who aren’t used to having to balance in such a position, but with a little practice they’re not so terrible. All of China uses them just fine. But although people always point out that squat toilets are more sanitary than western toilets, since you don’t have to sit on them, I would like to point out that there is a different cultural idea of “sanitary” being used here. Squat toilets, especially in public places, are often very dirty, with urine and who knows what else on the floor. In China there is rarely toilet paper available in public restrooms, and soap is nearly non-existant. Public squat toilets smell bad. Worse than a majority of dirty American public restrooms I’ve been in. And there is often very little privacy. Yes, my butt doesn’t have to touch the same seat as a thousand other people, but squatting on a urine-stained floor in sandals is far from my personal idea of “sanitary”.
It works for China. The Chinese are less concerned about privacy (in gender segregated areas) and have a totally different idea of what is necessary to be clean and healthy, and they have not all died, so it must be fine. Admittedly, Americans are a bit anal when it comes to sanitation, probably unnecessarily so, but as an American, I have a hard time breaking out of my cultural expectations. Maybe I don’t need to wash my hands every time I go to the bathroom. Not all squat toilets are dirty. And no one is going to pay attention to me in the bathroom.
But I still prefer at least a bathroom with stall doors that close.
As the end of my time in Kaifeng gets closer, I’ve taken up photographing my food again. Here are some Delicious and very typical dishes of Kaifeng!
Only a week or two ago we discovered a fantastic dumpling restaurant near Old Campus. Pictured are some cabbage and pork boiled dumplings and a dish of greens and fried tofu in a thick, garlicy sauce which is absolutely fantastic. Below is the vinegar and hot sauce dipping mix for the dumplings. This restaurant also has fantastic Fish Sauce Eggplant, and is very reasonably priced.
This is kebab salad with cucumber and mayo from a tiny shop near the West Gate of Old Campus. Kaifeng has a pretty decent Islamic population, so there’s a fair amount of Arabic-style foods.
Zongzi is a typical food for the Dragon Boat Festival, which happens in mid-June-ish. It’s sticky rice and other fillings (this one had dates) wrapped in bamboo leaves and cooked. I ate mine off a stick with a sprinkle of sugar on it, and it was very heavy and filling.
Another typical Arabic-influenced food: mutton soup. This soup has only a few slices of mutton,but is filled with soup-soaked bread bits and both tofu noodles and rice noodles. Cilantro and a little bit of hot pepper are typical flavoring.
Another set of dishes from Little Song City, an indoor restaurant intended to simulate a Song Dynasty outdoor rood market. Pictured are cold rice noodles in spicy sauce, cucumber and thousand-year eggs in spicy sauce, sticky rice in bamboo leaves, sweet fried sticky rice, sticky rice in pineapple, soup-filled dumplings, and garlic fried starch cubes.
This was a dish we had at a Chinese/Western combo restaurant. It’s a giant cube of the heavy, slightly sweet Chinese bread, hot from the oven and with a scoop of ice cream on top. Not exactly typical Chinese (ice cream isn’t very popular in China), but this kind of bread is pretty common.
These two and all the following dishes were from an old fashioned Chinese restaurant, again trying to emulate foods from the Song Dynasty or earlier. On the right is the same cold rice noodle dish from before, and on the left was celery in a spicy sauce.
A very typical soup from this area of China, it has tofu noodles and rice noodles, onions, black fungus, and is flavored with a lot of vinegar and black pepper. Below is the restaurant’s typical dish: spicy green beans and garlic in soy sauce.
Any typical Chinese meal has to include tofu, and this is a pretty standard style. Above the tofu is meat balls in soup, again with a very strong vinegar flavor.
And always one of my favorites: braised pork. The Chinese seem to use a different cut of pork than I’m used to in American foods. These pork cubes are each at least half fat. Some people find this to be a bit too much and will scrape the fat off, but I personally think it’s too delicious to waste. Bring on the fat!
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